Saturday, April 23, 2011

A few years ago I went to the California Science Center and had a good time. I like any science museum where you get to learn about physics by pushing buttons and turning knobs. So one day I took Hannah to the CSC hoping to do this, but sometime between our visit and the time i last went (maybe about 6 years), the CSC added an entire wing to their building called "Ecosystems" and it just recently opened a few months before our visit. I had no idea! So we had to check it out.

There were lots of cool exhibits but the main attraction is definietly the Kelp Forest Aquarium.

It even has a Wave Machine and Tunnel. With a Touch Tank nearby!

The Aquarium of the Pacific will charge you $25 a person to see this, but the CSC is absolutely free!!! (donations recommended though)

Despite all the photos of marine life, Hannah's favorite part of the visit is the Porcupine of the Desert Ecosytem.

This isn't really a photo I took at the CSC. The porcupine exhibit dark so its hard to take photos.

Anyway, the California Science Center was so cool we went again two weeks later when Lola visited!

And no trip to Exposition Park is complete without a stop at Mercado La Paloma!

Mercado La Paloma is a Latin American Food Court where they have Yucatan Food. And they have a play area in the middle so you can eat while your kids play. Why don' t more places have this?

So what about the buttons and knobs? Well, the CSC has replaced a lot of those exhibits with touch screens. No offense, but we already have an iPad. But with the Ecosystem wing, who cares? We'll definitely be back to visit the porcupine thats for sure!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Over the course of the winter, Hannah developed a fear of ducks. This is 100% my (dad's) fault. Here's how it happened:

There's this outdoor mini-mall in Valencia that has a duck pond in front of it. This looked like a nice place to feed ducks, so I took some old bread and give it to Hannah. She was having a great time feeding the ducks -- as long as she was on the bridge over the pond. Being part of a mall, I made the assumption that these ducks were tame.

This was a bad assumption.

We decided to get closer the ducks so we got off the bridge and stood out in the open to feed them. They soon surrounded us.

This is when dad should have chased them away. But one of the ducks, eyeing some bread in Hannah's hand, lept up to her and grabbed the bread away from her, biting her hand in the process. Fortunately the bite didn't break the skin. But the bite did scare Hannah enough to the point where anytime she saw a duck she freaked out. Oops.

Hannah would not even go near a duck for almost 3 months. I felt bad for a few weeks, but after a while it just became silly. They're ducks, come on!

Well one day we were planning on being in the area of the duck pond, so in oh-so-clever attempt to cure her of this fear, I took Hannah back to the scene of the crime.

I gave Hannah some bread and told her to get to it. Did it work?

Surprisingly, yes! This time she just stayed on the bridge and she had a great time. Phobia cured! I guess you do learn a thing or two from watching decades of bad sitcoms!